He mouthed the words as though he'd been making a nominating speech.

  "Lived here long?" I asked.

  "Five years."

  "Who owns the building?"

  "Uncle Rufus."

  "Left rather a considerable estate?"

  He said almost too hastily, "I don't know. I know very little about his financial affairs. I've always gathered that he was affluent."

  "You work?" I asked.

  "At present," he said, "I am not working in the sense of having employment. I am doing research work for an historical novel."

  "Ever had anything published?" I said.

  He flushed and said, "I don't think that needs to enter into it."

  I said, "I thought you might like the publicity—that was all."

  He said, "This is an idea for an historical novel that appealed to Uncle Rufus."

  "He was financing it?" I asked.

  For a minute the eyes avoided mine, then came back to look at me—bloodshot, restless eyes that seemed afraid of something. "Yes," he said, "and now I suppose I'll have to drop it."

  "What's it about generally?"

  "The Coast Guard."

  "And historical?"

  "Back to the days of the real Merchant Marine," he said with a note of enthusiasm coming into his voice. "Back when

  San Francisco was a real port, a real city that had ships from all corners of the world crowding in through the Golden Gate. Days that are past, but days that will come again when once more American merchandise begins to move in American bottoms, when you can stand on a headland anywhere along the coast and look out and see the smudge of smoke on the horizon, when ..."

  "Nice stuff," I interrupted. "Your uncle wasn't married?”

  “No."

  "Any other relatives?"

  "None that I know of."

  "Leave a will?"

  "Really, Mr...."

  "Lam."

  "Really, Mr. Lam, I don't see the pertinency of that question. May I ask what paper you're with?"

  "None."

  "What ! "

  "None."

  "I understood you were gathering material for the Press." I said, "I'm a detective."

  "Oh!" The exclamation was short and sharp.

  "When did you hear about it?"

  "About my uncle's death?"

  "Yes."

  "A very short time after the body was found I was notified and asked to go over—to the apartment where the body was found."

  "Nice place you have here," I said.

  "I like it. I've told my uncle several times that I could get along in a smaller apartment, but he insists that I should have this. It's rather elaborate—two apartments merged into one."

  He blew his nose again, abruptly said to me, "There's something in my right eye. Will you excuse me for a moment?"

  "Yes."

  "A little cinder or something," he said.

  He twisted a handkerchief, moistened the end, went over to a mirror, and pulled down the lid of his right eye.

  "Perhaps I can help you," I said.

  "Perhaps."

  He rolled his right eye up. There was a little brownish speck

  down at the very bottom of the eye. I speared it with the handkerchief, and he said, "Thanks."

  We went back to our chairs and sat down.

  "Have you any clues as to—as to how it happened?" he asked.

  I said, "I'm not with the police. I'm private."

  "A private detective?"

  "Right."

  "May I ask who employed you, what your interest is, why you ..." He stopped and looked at me.

  I said, "I'm interested in a very incidental angle. I believe your uncle was about to sell the Stanberry Building.”

  “I think he was."

  "Did he say anything to you about it?"

  "Just generally. I knew that a sale was pending."

  "Know what the price was?"

  "I don't know, and if I did, I see no reason why I should communicate the information to you. After all, Mr. Lam, it seems to me that you're being rather impertinent in your inquiries."

  "How old was your uncle?"

  "Fifty-three."

  "Ever been married?"

  "Yes."

  "Widower?"

  "No. There was a divorce."

  "How long ago?"

  "About two years, I believe."

  "You knew his wife?"

  "Oh yes, of course."

  "Where is she now?"

  "I don't know."

  "Did she get the divorce, or did he?"

  "She did."

  "A property settlement?"

  "I believe so, yes. Really, Mr. Lam, this is taking the inquiry very far afield, don't you think?"

  "Did you tell the police any more than you told me?"

  "I don't think I told them as much. Your questions are rather—rather personal."

  "I'm sorry," I said. "You see I ..." I choked in mid-sentence, coughed, gagged, muttered, "Bathroom, quick!" He ran to a door, opened it. I lurched through. He ranacross the bedroom, opened the bathroom door. I went in, waited five seconds, then opened the door. I could hear his voice in the living-room. He was telephoning.

  I took a quick look around the bedroom. It was neat and well kept. The closet was filled with clothes. A shoe shelf had nearly two dozen pairs of shoes all neatly treed. On the inside of the closet door were two necktie racks that must have held something over a hundred neckties. On the dressing-table, brushes and comb were neatly arranged. The brushes were clean and so was the comb. There were, perhaps, a dozen framed photographs on the dresser, or hanging on the walls. Directly across from the bed was an oval space measuring about twelve inches the long way, about eight inches the other, just a little different colour from the rest of the wall. On the dresser, a cigarette had been torn in two, and both ends lay there. It was the only bit of litter in the room.

  Abruptly the door opened. Archie Stanberry stood in the doorway looking at me reproachfully. "I thought you wanted to go to the bathroom?"

  "I did. Nice place you have here."

  "Mr. Lam, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I don't like your methods."

  "Okay by me," I said. I walked out to the sitting-room. Stanberry made something of a ceremony of moving across and flinging open the outer door, then standing in statuesque dignity.

  I didn't go out. I walked back to the easy chair and sat down.

  For a moment Stanberry maintained his pose. Then he said, "I'm asking you to leave. If you don't leave, I shall have to do something about it."

  "Go ahead," I invited.

  He waited, then slowly closed the door.

  For a moment we looked at each other. Then Stanberry said, "I did you the extreme courtesy of permitting you to intrude upon my grief because I thought you were a gentleman of the Press."

  His tone was reproachfully cultured.

  "I told you I'm a detective."

  "Had you told me that earlier, I should not have admitted you—particularly had I known you were a private detective.”

  “A detective has to look around," I said.

  "Mr. Lam, I don't know just what your game is, or what

  you're trying to do, but if you don't leave at once, I shall call the officers."

  "Suits me," I said. "When you call them, call Frank Sellers. He's connected with Homicide. He's working on your uncle's death."

  I sat there and Archie Stanberry stood there. After a moment, Stanberry walked dubiously to telephone, then detoured and sat down. "I can't understand the reason for this rudeness," he said.

  I said, "In the first place, while you are a meticulous little man with neat habbits, you aren't that neat." I jerked my thumb towards the bedroom. "You are the favourite nephew of a rich uncle who owns the joint. Therefore, you get maid service—and how. That bedroom of yours is as clean as a new pin."

  "What's that got to do with it?" he asked.

  I grinned and said, "That's the weak point in your armour.”

  “What do you mean?"

  I put all the assurance in the world in my voice. "The maid," I said, "will be able to tell what picture was taken down from the wall—that's where you made your mistake. You shouldn't have taken down the whole frame. You should have pulled out the back of the frame, removed the picture, put in another one, and hung the frame back in place. As it is, you can see a little difference in colour where the frame was removed. And, of course, there's the little hole in the wall left by the steel push-pin that held the picture."

  He looked at me as though I'd hit him in the stomach.

  "So," I said, "go ahead and call the police. When Frank Sellers comes, we'll bring the maid in here and show her Billy Prue's picture and ask her if that's the one that was removed from the wall right across from your bed."

  His shoulders sagged as though both lungs had gone flat. "What ... what do you want?"

  "The truth, naturally."

  "Lam, I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone else—something that I've never expected to admit to a single soul."

  I didn't say anything, but just sat there waiting.

  He said, "I dropped in at the Rendezvous every once in a while. It's only natural that I should have."

  "Getting material for your novel?"

  "Don't be silly. I was getting relaxation and looking around.When a man is doing a lot of brain work, he has to do some playing."

  "So you played around with Billy Prue?"

  "Will you please let me finish?"

  "Go ahead."

  "Billy Prue sold me cigarettes. I looked her over and thought she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen."

  "So you made passes?"

  "Naturally. And I got absolutely nowhere."

  "Then what?"

  "Then I became even more seriously interested, and I'm afraid my uncle—well, I'm afraid my uncle didn't approve of the manner in which I was—doing what he called losing my head."

  "What did he do?"

  "I don't know, Mr. Lam. I give you my word of honour that I don't know."

  "But what do you think?"

  "I don't even think."

  I said, "Perhaps I can do some thinking for you."

  He looked at me with swollen, bloodshot eyes and acted as though he were a wounded deer asking me why I'd shot him.

  I said, "Your uncle thought she was a gold-digger?"

  "I think that was rather obvious from what I said."

  "So he went to see her and told her that if she'd give you a thorough jolt so it would cure you—if she'd run off with someone else or let you catch someone else in her apartment, or do something that would completely disillusion you, he'd give her more money than she could hope to get by making a legitimate matrimonial alliance and then trying to. collect alimony."

  Archie took a soggy handkerchief from his hip pocket, started twisting it around and around his fingers. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know. I don't think that Uncle Rufus would have done anything like that. I don't think Billy would have listened to it. I think she would have ... resented it."

  "With a hand axe?" I asked.

  "My God," he said, "you're driving me mad with those cynical nasty cracks of yours. Of course not ! Billy wouldn't harm a flea. We've got to keep Billy out of this! We must!"

  "How about the picture?"

  "I took it down as soon as I found out that—well, about what had happened."

  "She gave you the picture?"

  "No. I found out what photographer took her publicity pictures and bribed him to take a nice pin-up picture for me. She didn't know I had a print."

  I said, "So far you've been one hundred per cent.”

  “One hundred per cent what?" he asked.

  "Rat," I said and walked out leaving him gazing reproachfully after me, a tear-soaked handkerchief held to his nose.

  Chapter Nine

  THE apartment house where I had been able to get a single apartment by dint of some pull and a lot of luck was about three blocks from the place where Bertha Cool had her apartment, which was altogether too close. It was a swanky place with a private switchboard and a garage, a rather ornate lobby, and the rent must have been fixed when the OPA had its back turned.

  I parked the agency car, went up to the lobby clerk and said, "Three forty-one."

  The man behind the desk looked at me sharply. "You're new here?" he asked.

  I nodded. "Just checked in today."

  "Oh yes. Mr. Lam, isn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "There's a message for you."

  He handed me my key and the folded slip of paper. The paper said, "Call Bertha Cool, at once."

  "Also," the manager went on, "a young woman has been calling you every ten or fifteen minutes. She won't leave her name or number. Says she'll call back."

  "A young woman?" I asked.

  The manager smiled condescendingly. "Her voice sounds young and attractive."

  I pushed Bertha's message down in my pocket and went to my apartment.

  The telephone was ringing as I entered. I closed the door, went into the bathroom, washed my hands and face and waited until it had quit ringing. Then I walked back to the telephoneand said to the switchboard operator, "Don't call me any more tonight."

  The operator said, "I'm sorry, I told this party that you didn't answer. She seemed very much disturbed, said it was a matter of the greatest importance."

  "Woman?" I asked.

  The girl downstairs said it was.

  I changed my mind and said, "All right, go ahead and ring if the call comes in again. I'll take it."

  I hadn't taken time to unpack when I'd checked in. Now I threw my grip on the bed and started taking things out. One thing about the Navy, it teaches a man to cut his possessions down to a minimum.

  I yawned, turned down the bed and got out my pyjamas. The telephone rang.

  I answered it.

  Bertha Cool's voice said, "Well, for Christ's sake! What's the matter with you? Are you getting so damned high-hat you can't call your boss on a matter of business?"

  "Partner," I said.

  "All right, partner then. Why the hell didn't you call me when you came in?"

  "I was busy."

  "Well, you're going to be busy. You're in a hell of a mess. Get over here."

  "Where?"

  "My apartment."

  I said, "I'll see you in the morning."

  Bertha said, "You'll see me now or you'll wish the hell you had. Frank Sellers is over here and the only thing that's keeping you out of the hoosegow right now is the fact that Frank is my friend. Of all the damn fools, trying to cut corners with the cops. I don't know why the hell I should worry about you. I should let you get thrown in the can. It might do you some good."

  "Put Sellers on the phone," I said.

  Bertha said, "You'd better come over."

  "Put him on the phone."

  I heard Bertha say, "He wants to talk with you."

  A moment later, Sellers' voice rumbled into the telephone. I said, "Listen, Frank, I'm all in. I don't want to go round and round with Bertha over some trivial technicality. Now suppose you tell me what's the beef."

  Sellers said, "You know what the beef is, and don't pull any of that innocent stuff with me, or I'll push your teeth down your throat. I'm sticking my neck all the way out to protect Bertha in the thing, and it may break me at that."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "You know what I'm talking about. Of all the damn, dumb places to plant the murder weapon, that was it."

  "What murder weapon?"

  "The hand axe, dope."

  "And where am I supposed to have planted it?" I asked. "Don't make me laugh," Sellers said.

  "I'm kidding on the square."

  "Don't be a sap," Sellers told me, "you're in so deep now, the only way you can get out is by coming absolutely clean. If you don't do that, you're going to take a little ride with me, and you're both going to lose your licences. Now then, how soon can you get over here?"